First Plant You Grew

Do you remember the first plant you grew? If you are my age, maybe not!! However, mine were zinnias. My Mom had a huge vegetable garden and one corner was a flowerbed. She gave us girls a little space of our own and I grew zinnias! I remember that garden so well.Along the edge were lilac, flowering almond and snowball bushes.

I remember my aunt taking me into the woods near where she lived to get some wildflowers to plant in my own woods - things like Jack-in-the-Pulpits, Dogtooth Violets and other wonderful things. I did exactly that and enjoyed seeing them for the remaining few years we lived in that location. That was also the place I got my very first houseplant, which I now know was a Hoya. I was only about 9 or 10 at the time and this was more than 40 years ago!

My first was planting a sweet potato in a container with just water. I was about 5 or 6 at the time. Those were the days before the potatoes were treated to inhibit growth as they are now. I still have the ceramic container but now it's missing the grapevine type handle.

There was a rose arbor covered with tiny pink roses framing the entrance to my "doll house", which had been a storage building in a former time but was home to me and my little friends for years, rain or shine. Such good memories!

This is a wonderful thread! It is bringing back such nice memories!

my first plant was a pincushion plant http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/1342/
i used to get them n the grocery store all the time . i also had a bleeding heart . i was around 6-7

In the 1940s we lived in a little terraced house with a pocket handkerchief back yard. My dad gave me and the two London evacuees we had living with us a packet of lobelia seed and about a square yard of earth to plant them in. I can still see them in my mind's eye, and remember how proud we felt of the little blue flowers.

Started a avocado from the pit.
Pierced it with toothpicks and suspended it half way in water glass.
Made a nice tree.

I had forgotten about how people grew the avocado seeds and sweet potato vines, That playhouse sounds like a great place for kids. I don't remember my Mom having house plants when I was a kid. Which is odd, because she loved plants and had lots of them outside. She had houseplants later in life. My first houseplant was a cactus after I left home, and I still have many cacti. I suspect many people who love gardening today were introduced to it as kids.

Both my mother and grandmother (who lived next door) had kitchen gardens out the back door and flower beds. I remember "helping" in them always so I assume babies played in the garden as much as the lawn. So anything I grew there wasn't really mine.

The first that was truly mine was in kindergarten when cut the top off our mid-morning milk carton and planted marigold seeds.

The first plant I grew was clematis roguchi. It came in three 2-inch grower pots, and I planted them beneath a rhododendron. I moved them so many times I ended up losing them! I keep hoping one day those nodding deep-blue bells will reappear somewhere out there.

For many years I've had clematis 'Royalty' growing on the rose, 'Queen Elizabeth'. It looked so terrible last fall I cut it down to the ground and saw nothing at all until two weeks ago. It's back! Maybe your 'Roguchi' will resurface as well.

sweet

Excellent! And given that a dug-up 'Sweet Autumn' clematis came back this year, you could be right!

What great stories !

My first plant was hosta. I had moved into a brand new house, and the old lady - probably the age I am now - lol ! - next door said she would love to share her garden if I would like to start one of my own. Of course I said yes.

She dug up a clump of hosta and showed me how to divide it. I was amazed that I could make more plants and that knowledge began my love of perennials 43 years ago.

My dad too wooden rain barrels and drilled holes in them. I planted the inside with pansies. I was about 14. In PA pansies would freeze but come back. I Texas where I live now I don't plant them as I am not much of a winter planter. They live thru May of June and the heat kills them never to return. I love them but not into annuals unless do it yourself (they reseed) pansies don't here.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/978/

I've mentioned it in my article in that link. Take a look if you have time. Scroll down about 75% if you want to read a few lines directly on the subject matter of this thread. But you are of course welcome to read in full.